News

In an Amicus Brief filed today in federal court, the Solar Energy Storage Association of Puerto Rico (SESA) and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) urged United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain to reject the proposed Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA) for Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA)’s over $8 billion in outstanding debt.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and Citizens Energy Corporation announced the completion of a 1.4-MW solar project in the Mohawk Valley. Located in Oneida County, Upstate Cerebral Palsy is the sole beneficiary of the commercial solar project.

According to new research from Wood Mackenzie, non-residential storage system costs will fall by 27% in the United States over the next five years. The fall in system costs will help drive a more-than-tenfold growth in the U.S. non-residential storage market by 2024. Commercial and industrial customers with predictable, peaky loads are increasingly turning to storage to help manage demand charges.

Law firm Wigdor LLP has brought another class-action lawsuit against New Jersey-based solar installer Momentum Solar. A former employee in the company’s call center, who is black, has alleged that management frequently referred to him by racial slurs, and was shortly terminated after filing a complaint.

SEIA announced that the Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association (MnSEIA) is now a formal SEIA state affiliate. This past year, SEIA has also added state affiliate groups in Kentucky, Alabama and Vermont.

Sunworks, a provider of solar power solutions for agriculture, commercial, industrial (ACI), public works and residential markets, has been awarded an EPC contract to develop a 657-kW roof-mount PV solar project for a Southern California residential complex in partnership with Bright Power.

8minute Solar Energy has partnered with Doosan GridTech to develop an advanced energy software control solution for dispatching energy from advanced photovoltaic solar-plus-storage centers (PVS).

Penn State University, in partnership with Lightsource BP, has broken ground on the largest solar project in the state of Pennsylvania. The project is expected to provide 25% of the university’s electricity over the next 25 years. Lightsource BP will build, own and operate the facility and sell the electricity to Penn State under a long-term power sales contract.

Thin-film solar panel manufacturer First Solar today announced the start of production at its new PV module manufacturing facility in Lake Township, Ohio — a few miles from its flagship 600-MW factory in Perrysburg, Ohio. With the completed addition, First Solar has a total annualized production capacity of 1.9 GW in the United States. The company also manufactures panels in Malaysia and Vietnam.

TicketNetwork, a leading software development company in the ticket resale marketplace, has deployed a 1.4-MW solar system on the roof of its Connecticut headquarters. The system, which was completed in the spring of this year, will offset nearly 70% of the company’s annual energy use and dramatically reduce its carbon footprint.

The Swiss solar equipment maker has already sold its corporate headquarters this week as it aims to generate a fighting fund until the hoped-for returns of a European PV manufacturing renaissance materialize.

The world’s solar superpower added only 16 GW of new generation capacity up to the end of last month, according to the head of the main industry association. Short of a ten-week miracle, the annual capacity figure seems set for a second consecutive steep annual decline.

The manufacturing facility, idled a few years ago, will produce bifacial modules. The company claims panel efficiency exceeds 20.5% and the factory has an annual production capacity of around 200 MW.

The regulations will come into effect on January 1 and will improve upon the regime introduced in 2014. The new provisions will for the first time provide a legislative framework for energy communities and storage deployment.

China will build the huge solar park at its own cost for its energy-hungry neighbor in exchange for access to rare earths. The project was announced by the Association of China Rare Earth Industry.